‘A more relaxed mode of living’: Texas buyers head to the hills to escape pandemic Steve Brown, The Dallas Morning News
The rush to rural properties that began during the pandemic gained steam in the early months of 2021.
Texas rural land purchases hit a record $1.69 billion last year as buyers headed to the hills to escape COVID-19.
In the first three months of this year, the buying binge in the boonies continued with record purchases, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.
“In the aftermath of the COVID-induced economic lockdown, 2021 Texas rural land markets have exploded in a burst of activity,” Real Estate Research Center economist Charles Gilliland said in his new report. “First quarter 2021 sales of large acreage rural properties grew more than 50% in West Texas and 37% statewide compared with 2020.
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Ninety minutes makes quite a difference in Texas s real estate market. Take these two bungalows for instance.
These cute little homes have two vastly different prices. One has three bedrooms and two full baths and 1,165 square feet of space. The other has two bedrooms and one bathroom and 1,016 square feet of space. The former is $153,000 in San Antonio and the latter is $649,000 in Austin.
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Both cities have been experiencing a housing sales boom, but Austin has been seeing record prices as more and more people move to the area and fewer homes are available on the market.
Home prices hit an all-time median high of $425,000 in the Austin-Round Rock metro area in March 2021, according to a report from the Austin Board of Realtors. The median sales price in the San Antonio area for March 2021 was $268,500, according to a report from the San Antonio Board of Realtors. The median sales price within Austin city limits was much higher still at $514,000.
D-FW leads Texas in home sales dallasnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dallasnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Austin market skyrockets as home price hits all-time high of $515,000 The median home price in Austin jumped almost 25 percent year-over-year. Another record-breaking month is in the books for the unstoppable Austin housing market. The latest report from the Austin Board of Realtors, detailing sales activity in March 2021, shows that the median home price in both the city itself and the greater metro area jumped well over 20 percent year-over-year, leading to new all-time highs for both segments. In the city of Austin, the median sale price grew an astounding 24.8 percent to $515,000, marking the first time that the median home price has surpassed the $500,000 mark. In February 2021, the figure sat at $491,000, a record at the time.
The white-hot housing market in the Austin area continues to blaze, with the median sale prices for homes hitting all-time highs in March and real estate experts say that even as demand soars, the region is showing no warning signs that it s experiencing a housing bubble that is at risk of bursting.
For the five-county metro area which runs from Georgetown to San Marcos the median price for homes sold in March was a record $425,000, up 28.8% from March 2020, according to the Austin Board of Realtors. That means half the homes sold for that amount and half sold for less.
Within Austin s city limits, the prices were even higher, with the median price at a record $514,000, which was up 24.8% from March 2020.